C.H. Meylan 18K Gold Keyless

Brand: C.H. Meylan

Case Material: 18k Gold

Case Shape: Round

Movement: Manual Wind

Case Dimensions: Diameter: 1.86 in (47 mm)

Style: Post-War

Place of Origin: Switzerland

Period: 1890-1899

Date of Manufacture: 1890

Condition: Excellent Wear consistent with age and use.

C.H. Meylan 18K Gold Keyless Lever Minute Repeater Half Hunter Pocket Watch Circa 1890's

Dial: The white enamel dial with Arabic numerals, and minutes in red, the sub dial for the seconds at six o'clock. The original blued steel hands with blued steel hand for seconds dial.

Case: The 18ct yellow gold half hunter case with front and back beautiful lightly engraved opening to reveal an inner plain cover. The cases are all Swiss hallmarked and numbered # 5713

Movement: The Swiss keyless lever jeweled movement with compensation balance, Breguet over coil hairspring with the exposed mechanism on the backplate. The hammers and gongs are also visible,

and movement also marked #5713 to match all case numbers.

The watch is a fine example of Swiss workmanship. The chimes ring clearly when the repeater is activated. The watch would make a fine addition to one's collection.

Makers overview:

Charles-Henri Meylan was born April 21, 1842 in the small town of Le Sentier, Switzerland, at age 22

C.H. Meylan settled in London, interning at Nicole & Capt. The once-famous Co. made pieces and supplied movements to Frodsham, Dent, and Tiffany & Co., among others, and Meylan worked as a repasseur, one of the most talented watchmakers entrusted with checking, adjusting, and correcting timing of finished watches. After four years Meylan returned to Switzerland, spending three years in Geneva finishing study of the technical science behind designing movements. With these skills, he looked for new frontiers.

By 1876 Meylan started to make a name for himself. At America's first World s Fair he won an award for improvement in chronograph design and presented a minute repeater and minute repeater chronograph, their "elegant construction [with] the complicated watches upon his plan constructed by Mr. Matile in Switzerland," according to a British report.

Meylan resettled in Le Brassus in 1888, founding a workshop near a small brook, surrounded by Louis Elisee Piguet workshops that supplied Meylan and others with ebauches. Meylan still maintained relationships in America, potentially his largest market, throughout his life. In 1903, he renamed the Co. The C.H. Meylan Watch Co., an English name reflecting an English market.

Around this time Meylan began producing his masterworks, making it clear his skills surpassed opportunities in the United States. Between around 1890 and 1915, Charles-Henri's workshop produced an average of one grand complication every other year, though probably finished in batches. They produced everything from fine time-only watches to high-end chronographs, split chronographs, repeaters, and impressively small Ladies complications, selling them under Meylan's name and private labels like Cartier, Tiffany, and Van Cleef & Arpels. In fact, Meylan movements appeared in watches from more than 110 different jewelers.

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